Tuesday, November 07, 2006

From 1997 onwards the only really funny thing about politics was the Labour attempt to pursue the class war by banning fox hunting. They did not, of course, attempt to ban the working class sport of angling, justifying this, when asked, by some lame arguments about the physiology of fish - they feel no pain etc.. They went after fox hunting because it was perceived to be upper class and also because it was so flamboyantly visible. Finally, eighteen months ago, they got their ban. It has, however, failed miserably and hunting now carries on as before with a few minor modifications. There are 'drag' hunts where a scented trail is used. But, I learn today, there are also hunts which exploit quite absurd loopholes in the law. Notably, the act says, 'Flushing a wild mammal from cover is exempt hunting if undertaken for the purpose of enabling a bird of prey to hunt the wild mammal.' Hunts now simply take birds with them and, if the dogs get there first, well, sorry, officer, it was an accident. Personally, I find the killing of wild animals for sport - fish or foxes - repellent, though I think I would find it less so if the humans involved were equally likely to die. But this attempt to ban fox-hunting has been so hilariously inept and so utterly futile that I think the sport should continue if only to keep the class war going. It is a great consolation and one of our finest tourist attractions.

7 comments:

For a second there, when you said "drag" hunts, I had a delightful vision of Dame Edna, et al, sitting their horses in full regalia, then riding to the hounds.

Now *that* would be a tourist attraction! (And perfectly British, for I have noticed a stock source of Brit humor is men dressing up as women. P'raps you should do a column on that, Bry? Does it go back to Shakespeare's day?)

I love the idea of the hunt being 50/50 of who is going to get torn to shreds. The hunt coming back after losing one of their own and swearing in the pub afterwards that they'll get that blast fox next time.

A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.